


Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

by mediocre-writing (elleavantemm)



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 19:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4071988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elleavantemm/pseuds/mediocre-writing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an unexpected night with Oliver Queen, John Diggle wakes to a side of Oliver he's never seen before. All things being what they are, John momentarily sacrifices his own immediately satisfaction to prove a point. But it's worth it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

John Diggle woke to the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of a sizzling pan. He opened his eyes slowly, adjusting to the flood of early morning light through the window. It took a few minutes for John to remember who it was in the kitchen. Curious at the smell and the sound, John pushed the blanket aside and dropped his legs over the side of the bed, stretching his arms behind him and briefly basking in the pull of muscles and the popping of joints. John reached blindly through the clothes on the floor before he located a pair of boxers and pulled them on followed by a grey tank top.

He could see Oliver in the kitchen from his bedroom door, shirtless and in loose fitting sweatpants that hung low on his hips. The other man - just a man and not a vigilante in the unforgiving light of day - stood at the stove stirring what smelled like scrambled eggs. A plate on the counter was piled with rashers of bacon. John watched the shift of muscles in Oliver’s back as he moved from the stove to the toaster where two slices of perfectly toasted bread had just emerged. On the counter behind Oliver the coffee maker was percolating happily. John could hardly remember the last time he’d drank anything other than diner coffee. Did he even have coffee in the apartment? If so, it probably didn’t taste very good.

With a soft smile at the whole picture, John stepped into the hallway and said, “I didn’t think you knew how to use a coffee maker.”

“I am a man of many talents, John Diggle,” Oliver said with his familiar warm smile. “I was just about to wake you.”

“In a way you did,” John replied with a nod to the sizzling eggs. 

“It isn’t much,” Oliver said as he removed the pan from the heat. “Can you grab us some plates?”

John moved behind Oliver into the narrow galley kitchen to retrieve the requested dishes. Oliver divided the eggs on to each plate, added several pieces of bacon, and a slice of toast each. John carried the plates to the two person table in what would be too generously described as a dining room. Oliver followed with a mug of steaming coffee in each hand. 

“Two sugars, right?”

“Right,” John replied. 

Oliver being in John’s apartment was not something he had ever envisioned happening. The sub basement at Verdant, the Queen mansion, or Queen Consolidated was where most of their interaction took place, and had no other reason to extend beyond those boundaries; but when Oliver had kissed John in his car, followed by a hotly whispered “Can we go somewhere?” John quickly did the calculation and his place was the closest, fastest place to get Oliver Queen somewhere he could do things he would never say out loud.   
John got lost in the memory of Oliver’s mouth persistent and hard against his. The phantom touch of Oliver’s bow calloused hands on his bare skin brought a rush of goosebumps up John’s back and down his arms. 

“Diggle? You still with me?” Oliver waved a hand in front of John’s face. 

“Hm? What?” John said, blinking his eyes open. He hadn’t realized that he’d closed them. 

Oliver gave John another fond, indulgent smile, as though he knew where John had just gone. “I asked if you had any plans for the day.”

If everything went accordingly, John planned to navigate one Oliver Queen back into the bedroom. He offered Oliver one of his own small smiles and took a drink from his coffee cup (it was good; good coffee and well brewed. John wondered where it had come from and when Oliver had learned to make it). “Nothing hard on the books.”

Oliver rubbed the back of his head, leaning back in his chair, and John looked his fill without guilt. If Oliver was going to put himself on display like that for him, it was only polite to appreciate the view. “Well, eat up then,” Oliver said, his eyes turning dark, playful. “Because I’ve gone plans for you.”

If Oliver’s plan involved sparring, so help him, John might kill him. 

His fears were laid to rest when Oliver rose from his chair, his breakfast plate empty, coffee drained, and circled behind John’s chair with predatory intent. “Though at the pace you’re going,” Oliver breathed against John’s ear, “I might not have the patience to wait.”

John’s chest rose with a deep intake of breath that betrayed his cool exterior. He took a deliberate bite of his breakfast, trying to ignore the heat of Oliver’s bare chest at his back, strong hands at his shoulders. “Patience is something you always struggle with, isn’t it.”

There was sudden cold at John’s back as Oliver stepped away. “Is that so.” Oliver’s tone had evened, lost its playful warmth. _God damnit, Diggle_ , John thought to himself. “Well, maybe we’ll see who’s really short on patient. Take your time with your breakfast, Diggle. I’ll wait for your in the bedroom.”

_Shit_. 

John took another drink from his coffee as he listened to Oliver pad back toward the bedroom. If John made Oliver wait until he was finished his breakfast and suitably ready to return to the bedroom himself he punished himself by depriving himself the opportunity to take advantage of all that Oliver had to offer sooner rather than later. If John followed too soon he gave Oliver the satisfaction of knowing John didn’t have the patience to wait, and John couldn’t allow that.  
He took a bite of cold eggs and mulled it over. Oliver would be in the bedroom either way, and it always felt good to show Oliver what was up. Methodically John moved the fork from plate to mouth and did not, did not, strain to hear the rustle of sheets or any other sounds from the bedroom. As he chewed the last of his toast, slowly, Oliver’s voice sing-songed out of the bedroom door. “Diggle, come back to be-e-ed.”

John placed both empty plates in the sink and washed his hands. He took a deep breath and walked confidently towards the bedroom already pulling his tank top over his head and dropping it just instead the door. Oliver lay sprawled over the bed, rumple bedsheets pulled across his lap in a lazy show of propriety. His right arm was tucked behind his head and one muscled leg draped over the side of the bed revealing tanned skin where grey cotton had once been. John ran his tongue across his bottom lip and bit back a groan. “I guess we really know who’s the patient one,” John said finally.

Oliver closed his eyes and chuckled. “Shut the hell up, Diggle, and get over here.”

John Diggle was not a man who needed to be asked twice.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in the Arrow fandom. I'm still getting caught up on the show, but I love these two desperately, and I love this pairing and honestly the mental picture of Oliver in loose fitting sweat pants cooking breakfast just couldn't be ignored. Comments and feedback and warmly welcomed.


End file.
